Just Business?
by Ashlaloo
Summary: AU. "Wow you're pretty." Sakura opened her eyes to see a small girl staring at her. "You should marry my Onii-san!"


Sakura took a deep breath before pinching the bridge of her nose with her left hand. The beginning of a migraine was making itself known. Opening her eyes she looked at the paper she was reading through. It was the weekly report on how the business was doing and thanks to her CEO, Shikamaru, the report went into every detail imaginable. Something that was both a Blessing as much as a curse. Thankfully for her the report was the last piece of paper that required her attention for the night, bad news about it was it held nearly 15 pages. 15 pages for only one week, god forbid she ever take a vacation.

_Pfft like Ojii-san would ever let me take a vacation. _

She frowned at the thought of her grandfather. He was the one person she wanted more than anything to impress, to make him proud of her. An impossible task. Satoshi was the founder of her company, the one to start it. Once her father, Saito was of age he inherited it and made in into the biggest company in the world. That being said Saito was probably the only person Satoshi was ever proud of. He was the perfect son, the perfect person. But nothing stays perfect forever. When she was a toddler her parents died. The reports say it was a drunk driver and they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time but Sakura knew it was more. They were murdered.

After their deaths Satoshi was named her legal guardian and the business went into his control until the day she turned 18, and he kept that promise. 3 years ago on her 18th birthday the papers were sent to her with his signature signing it over to her. But during her childhood...she did everything she could to try and capture his attention, to no avail. She was raised by her staff, saw her grandfather a handful of times in her life, and lived a life of loneliness. He blamed her for his sons death, she knew that and it didn't matter what she did as a child to try to make up for it. To him Saito should have been the one walk away, not her.

"Sakura-sama."

A knock at her door snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Enter." She said looking back to the report.

"For you."

Sakura looked to the butler as he held out a very elegant looking envelope.

"Why are you giving this to me?" She asked waving her hand to dismiss him.

"It's an invitation to the Capoiera Ball." Nix stated.

Sakura looked back to the papers. "I know what it is. I haven't been to a single dance, ball, conference, or any other type of social gathering involving other companies. That said I'll ask again. Why are you giving this to me?" She asked turning a page.

"Satoshi-sama has ordered you attend."

That caught her attention.

"Excuse me?"

"He said it was time you started to make yourself known to the other companies. It's been years since a Haruno has attended any gatherings and he wishes to remind them who's still on top." Nix said bowing and walking out.

Sakura sat surprised in her chair with the envelope in her hand. Since when did her grandfather care about social gatherings? Making appearances wasn't necessary to remind the other companies who was really in charge. All that required was money. There had to be some other reason he wanted her to go, though it didn't really matter. He ordered her to go, so that's what she had to do.

* * *

Sakura sat lazily in the back of her limo. Apparently she wasn't allowed to drive herself to this event. No, instead of driving in her very expensive Ferrari she had to take a less expensive white, not black, limo. It was a Bently limo but still cost less than her car. Too add on that she was late, there had been a minor accident on the main road to the Konoha Rose Garden. These events usually happened at one of the big business's estates but this one, the Capoiera Ball, was held at the Rose Gardens.

"We're here Sakura-sama." Her driver said when he stopped the car in front of the enormous building.

She let out a long sigh as she looked out the window. The building looked old, not Japanese old, more like Roman Catholic old.

_Kind of scary_

"Great." She said in a monotone before one of the buttlers standing outside opened her door. The crisp Autumn air made her shiver as she stepped out of the limo. Her 4 inch heels clicked on the marble as she walked to the door flashing her invitation to the 'bouncer' and walking in. Another butler was waiting just on the other side, he offered to take her shawl and she gave it too him.

_Holy shit._

The overly large room was brightly lit, more so by the gigantic crystal chandelier hanging in the center of the ceiling. On the other side of the room there was an inside balcony with a grand set of stairs on both the right and left sides of the room leading up to it.

White and gold covered the room. Just about every support column was covered in white roses, Large white silk curtains hung over, around, and down the walls and ceiling with gold chains bunching them in the middle.

Looking around she saw how many people were dancing and mingling. There were a lot more than she thought. Ignoring the commotion around her she walked to the stairs. All she was there to do was make an appearance, to let everyone _see_ she was there. She wasn't there to have fun or dance or do whatever else people did at these things.

"Hold it."

Sakura raised an eyebrow at the rather large man who blocked her way to the stairs.

"Name?" He asked eying before looking at a clipboard.

Anger boiled up inside her. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Stopping her?

"_Who do you think she is?"_

"_I've never seen her here any of other years."_

"_She's trying to get to the upstairs section? Who let her in?"_

"_Doesn't she know anything?"_

Sakura grit her teeth as she heard the whispered behind her. All these snotty rich girls had nothing better to do than gossip and worry about other people's lives. It was pathetic really, that they didn't have anything more interesting to do.

"I've never seen you before. This section is reserved for the 6 big Company families. This must be you're first year, unless you're important enough to know one of the families you can't enter." He told her.

"_I knew it, she's new."_

"_I can't believe she thought she could just waltz up there." _

"_Poor thing, no one's going to want to talk to her now." _

"_Pity." _

As calmly as she could Sakura handed the man her invitation. The look on his face was almost worth the trouble he caused her, almost. Whoever was in charge of planning this thing was going to get a most unfortunate visit tomorrow.

"I'm so very sorry. Please, go ahead. You're table is on the far right side." He said handing her the invitation and bowing.

"_Hmm. I guess she does know someone up there."_

"_Aww, lucky. I wonder what it's like up there."_

"_Pfft. I bet she's just a gold digger. She's not even that pretty."_

"_Who do you think she's with?"_

Sakura had been here a total of 15 minutes and so far, hated it. As she climbed up the stairs she could just feel the stares on her. The stupid curious little women not wanting to miss who she was going to talk to. As she reached the top she saw 6 very nicely set tables. Each had a name plate and each was surprisingly empty. She quickly looked at each table as she passed them.

**Uchiha**

**Uzumaki**

**Hyuuga**

**Yamanaka**

**Isago **_(Sand Siblings)_

and at the end

**Haruno.**

It was surprising really. How even after 20 years of no Haruno attending a single event there was still a table reserved for her family. Though it would be a disaster if she arrived and there wasn't one waiting for her. Gracefully she pulled out the chair at the end of the table, (meant for the head of the company) and sat in it.

Even from a story up she could hear the gasps of the nosy women watching her. Followed by low murmurs of the crowd talking about her. She could only imagine what they were saying.

"_Why is she here?"_

"_Why now?"_

"_She's only a young woman."_

Blah Blah Blah. They could think what they want, it didn't matter.

"Can I get you something to drink Haruno-sama?" A server asked. She could tell by the inflection in his voice he was nervous.

"1942 Chateau red wine." She said not even looking at him. Something he was probably grateful for. Now that everyone knew who she was all that was left was to wait for the night to end so she could go home. Closing her eyes she let the classical music fill her.

"Wow, you're pretty."

Slowly opening her eyes Sakura saw a black haired little girl smiling at her. Momentarily confused Sakura looked around the balcony, there was still no one. "Where are you're parents?"

"Oh they're with the rest of the boring people. Probably having some meeting to talk about boring business stuff. It's why we attend these dumb get togethers. To talk in a peaceful environment." The girl shrugged and sat in the chair next to Sakura.

When Sakura didn't say anything the girl continued talking.

"Yeah, I went to one of those meetings once and guess what. I fell asleep in the first 5 minutes. Really, I don't understand why it's so important to look at graphs and stuff." The small girl was in a navy dress that fit on her upper body then poofed out at her hips. Right now she was swinging her legs back and fourth while stuffing her face with a cheesecake a server brought her. "By the way." She said swallowing her mouthful. "Why aren't you in that meeting? Even the dates of the families go to those meetings." The shock covered the girls face before she scooted close to Sakura and looked around. "Did you sneak up here?" She asked in a hushed whisper.

Sakura couldn't help but smile at the girls innocence. "No. This table is all mine and I just arrived."

"So you're the big big business. My Oto-san told me about you when I asked one time. He said that you're super duper oooper rich, even more so than we are. When I asked why you never showed up he said you were very busy and these things weren't so important to you."

"Your Oto-san was right. I'm very busy."

"But you found the time to come tonight, so why couldn't you do that before?"

Thinking about the question Sakura looked at the small girl. "How old are you?" This child was giving her a pretty stimulating conversation for being 4 feet tall.

"7." She said proudly popping another bite of cake into her mouth. "You know." She said excitedly. "You should marry my Onii-san."

All Sakura could do to that was raise an eyebrow.

"My parents are making him get married but there's no rich business women they're interested in for him so they're probably going to make him marry this awful girl. She has icky red hair, and wears glasses, she's totally shapeless...well no...she has ok size boobs, but the thing is. She's not even rich, her family doesn't own a business."

"Then why are they making him marry her if she's not rich?" Sakura asked.

"I said she's not rich but she is special. Her father's some ambassador. My Oto-san said if Onii-san can't marry in business then marrying in politics was the next best thing. But the thing is Onii-san isn't interested in her at all."

Sakura nodded. It was the smart thing to do. To marry into politics was a good way to get your business known.

"Grrr." The girl growled. "I hate her. She's so fake. She acts so perfect and girly in front of my parents and Onii-san but she's so evil to me and the staff. She treats me like I'm 4." The girl stood up. "Do I look 4 to you?" She asked.

"Noo." Sakura shook her head. "If anything you look 8."

"Thank you! Oh by the way my names Mai." She bowed.

"Sakura." Sakura said slightly dipping her head.

* * *

**I know I sholdn't be starting another story but I need one with a normal life setting. . . well kinda normal. I mean I have two that keep Sakura and Sasuke ninja, one that's totally out there, and now this one where it takes place in modern day. If you're a follower of mine and you're thinking *God girl update you're other stories like...RIGHT NOW!* This is gunna sound soo dumb but I have plans for those I swear the only thing is I don't know how to get there with my stories. I'm soooo bad at explaining things in my stories which is why I have such a hard time with updating on a regular basis soo don't worry I'll try and get everything figured out in the meantime enjoy this story until I get writers block. :D**


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